Four Tips for Using Facebook to Promote Your Business or Blog
By Melissa Michaels
Do you ever wonder how to promote your business or blog using a Facebook page? When I first started Facebook for my blog, The Inspired Room, I’ll admit it felt awkward, confusing and I wasn’t really sure how to use it to build a community or grow my business. But as I experimented and tried different approaches, I have found a few valuable tips that have worked for me.
1. Provide Great Content.
While you might be tempted to use a Facebook page as a place to simply promote yourself or plug your own business services, I think it works best to focus on providing great content. Make your page useful and interesting and link freely to content you think your niche would find interesting! Being genuinely passionate about your subject is what will draw people to you and you’ll gain loyal supporters of your business.
Being particular about what you share and promote will help build your reputation as a trusted authority in your field. Design your Facebook page to be a valuable trusted resource that will give your followers a reason to stick with you, promote you and ultimately stay engaged with your business.
As readers grow to trust your taste and advice, your business will grow and you’ll make amazing, career-building connections!
2. Know Your Brand Identity.
As you are promoting great content via the use of your Facebook page, you’ll be inadvertently developing your reputation as a trusted business and brand. You don’t need to overtly promote yourself in order for your brand to become known, it will happen organically.
If you are trying to build a reputable decorating business, I think it is best to produce and promote content that closely relates to your niche and helps build up your brand identity. It is OK to share the occasional random makeup tip or recipe (just like real people talk about more than one topic), but if the content gets tipped too heavily away from the brand identity you are trying to build, you’ll lose some credibility in your business niche and probably confuse people as to what your business and passion is all about. You need to know your identity and confidently build your brand.
3. Show Personality.
Even though you want to build an identity around your brand, it is extremely important that your own personality shine through! It is imperative to write in a personable, relatable way so people feel they know you as a person.
The people that have been able to cut through the chatter of millions of unknown voices are the ones who write in a way that readers can relate to. Readers need to hear bits and pieces of your real life and sense your personality in order to get to know you. Followers need to believe you are sharing a real passion for your subject and that comes from getting to know you and trusting you as a person.
4. Get People to Follow You.
So if you are following tips 1-3 above, how do you get more people to follow you, engage with your content and ultimately grow your business? There are many tricks you can get more followers, but it always comes back to being genuine, useful, friendly and supportive in your community. No one will care about what you have to say or know where to find you for business until you reach out and simply make connections! Just like in real life, Facebook is all about building your reputation, making connections and growing relationships!
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Melissa Michaels is the creator of The Inspired Room, a popular design blog dedicated to inspiring readers to embrace the home and life they have. Each day The Inspired Room delivers fresh and affordable ideas to make a house a home. Read by over 100,000 people each month, The Inspired Room has been featured on HGTV.com, Apartment Therapy, Re-Nest, The Washington Post, The Seattle Times, The Oregonian and other publications
